Want to write for FairVoteUBC?

Do you believe in democracy?  Do you feel the voice of students at UBC and voters across the city, province and country are not being represented because of institutional problems with our voting and political systems?

If you said yes and you are interested in campus politics and like writing then get in touch with us! We need writers!  (email to fairvoteubc  at symbol gmail dot symbol com )

Last year FairVoteUBC was a voice for progressive change in our voting system working to get proportional voting passed for voting on campus and organizing to support the BC-STV referendum.  Read through our past posts to get a sense of what we’re about.  If you agreee with some of what we said last year you could be one of our writers this year.  If you are accepted as a writer you will have total freedom for your own articles.  The hope is that we can get a few people to cover the upcoming AMS elections on campus and other democratic deficit issues concerning students.

If we can then we could enter the VFM competition for next year.  For our election coverage last year we received $700 but we also won the regular, smaller VFMs for several months before election season.

FairVoteUBC is an ally to other fairvote organizations such as FairVoteBC and Fair Vote Canada but is not officially a member or constrained by those organizations.

Please let us know if you are interested.

Mark Crowley – FairVoteUBC Webmaster

Op-Ed : Blake, don’t pull an Al Gore

The recent AMS elections left me with a warm feeling in my heart in more ways than one.  It was the highest turnout in UBC history, over 6000 students, a big achievement in a  campus democracy. 

AMS election results: good news for BC-STV

There were many reasons to be optimistic about last night’s AMS election 2009 results:

1) Strong BC-STV supporters elected to key positions

UPDATE: It appears that Blake Frederick has been disqualified for ’slating’ (collaborating too much with other candidates), which would make Alex president.  Details and commentary posted here.  There could be an appeal, so this may not be final.

We at Fair Vote UBC were happy to see that the two candidates we endorsed, Blake Frederick for AMS president and Tim Chu for VP External, were both elected in their respective races. It is crucial that in the coming months leading up the May 12 BC-STV referendum that we have a supportive AMS executive that will help raise awareness among the UBC community. Both Blake and Tim support an AMS endorsement of BC-STV, and we hope that the AMS will take a leading role in promoting BC-STV in the coming months.

AMS Election Coverage Kickoff

FairVoteUBC  is kicking off our election coverage today of the 2009 Alma Mater Society election. Our goal is to provide some insight and analysis into the candidates’ views with respect to the important issues of student representation, influence and voice.  The voice of students must be heard on campus, across the province and even across the country.

Municipal Electoral Finance Reform: It should be the AMS’ top lobbying priority.

Honestly, I haven’t been paying too much attention to the municipal election.  It’s just that the issues I care about most are not apparently being championed by any party, or even by the AMS.  Sure the AMS is trying